COLOMBIA:
FARC Hostages Died in
Military-Rebel Shootout
By
Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, (IPS) -
The deaths of 11 of the
12 regional lawmakers
being held hostage by
Colombia’s FARC rebels
may have occurred in the
midst of fighting
between the insurgents
guarding the hostages
and the "Junglas", an
elite military unit,
according to a
reconstruction of events
based on interviews by
IPS.
In the wee hours one
night in June a
motorboat carrying some
30 guerrilla fighters
and 11 of the
legislators, who have
been held hostage for
more than five years,
ran into a Jungla
commando in the
headwaters of the
Cajambre river in
western Colombia.
The boat was escorted,
on land, by another
rebel unit commanded by
Milton Sierra, who
Colombian authorities
have given the alias "J.
J.".
The group of hostages
had reportedly been
handed over to J.J. the
day before by another
FARC (Revolutionary
Armed Forces of
Colombia) unit because
some of the insurgents
guarding them had
suspiciously deserted,
and the decision was
taken to immediately
move the lawmakers.
The 12th legislator,
Deputy Sigifredo López,
survived because "he was
not at that moment with
the rest of the
hostages," according to
the FARC.
Perhaps the Jungla
commando launched a
failed attempt to rescue
the hostages, or else
the guerrillas spotted
the military unit and
opened fire. In any
case, "everyone started
shooting," a source
close to the FARC told
IPS on condition of
anonymity.
The source said the
FARC’s Secretariado del
Estado Mayor, the
insurgent group’s
leadership, gave its
members and supporters
instructions not to
comment on the events,
but to wait instead for
an official statement
from that body.
The motorboat pulled up
to the bank to join the
FARC land unit, and "two
or three" military
helicopters immediately
brought in troops who
joined the fighting.
"The shooting went on
for three days, and the
bodies were left on the
boat," said the source.
After three days, the
Jungla commando and the
guerrillas both took
shelter on the steep
hills of the Andean
valley that the river
runs through.
"The bodies were left
there for another three
days" before the
guerrillas "returned to
see what was left." They
were incommunicado,
having lost their radio
telephones, the source
added.
"The army was still
there. They thought
there were more
guerrillas" than were
actually in the area,
and they ambushed the
insurgents. "The
guerrillas responded.
But the military had
strong backup," he said.
Then for the second
time, "the army and
guerrillas each went
their own way."
The insurgents finally
returned again and were
able to recover the
bodies of the hostages
and their own dead.
It was at that point
that J.J. was killed,
according to the source,
whose account helps make
sense of fragments of
information from various
sources gathered by IPS
in the course of
investigating the
circumstances
surrounding the deaths
of the11 lawmakers from
the western department
(province) of Valle del
Cauca, where the
fighting took place.
The legislators formed
part of a much larger
group of hostages held
by the FARC with the aim
of exchanging them for
imprisoned guerrillas in
an eventual humanitarian
swap. The group includes
former presidential
candidate Ingrid
Betancourt and other
civilians, as well as
members of the armed
forces and police, and
three U.S. military
contractors.
The various sources
concur on the place
where the fighting broke
out, but differ with
respect to the number of
guerrilla casualties and
on the alleged
participation of foreign
troops, as claimed by
one of the sources.
IPS will refrain from
reporting the sources’
description of the
origin of the shots that
killed the hostages,
which is to be
determined by a
humanitarian mission of
forensic experts.
A report on the
Colombian navy’s web
site dated Jun. 15
states that "in a joint
operation between the
army, the navy and the
air force, the guerrilla
leader….alias ‘J.J.’ was
killed in combat while
riding in a vessel on
the Cajambre river,
upriver from the town of
Barco, in the department
of Valle del Cauca."
JUNGLA COMMANDOS
The Junglas are trained
in reconnaissance,
infiltration and the
taking of objectives.
To carry out
infiltration operations,
a few members of the
Junglas pose as ordinary
campesinos (small
farmers) or indigenous
people. They also
infiltrate the FARC
itself, as occurred in
this case according to
the anonymous source.
The commandos are
equipped with night
vision goggles and other
hi-tech devices and are
trained in survival
techniques. They are
capable of living for
weeks in the jungle,
often travelling quietly
by kayak along rivers.
Once they have located a
target, they are backed
up in the assault by
troops brought in by
helicopter.
The elite unit was set
up in 1989, and at least
at the start, in the
early 1990s, was trained
by the Special Air
Service (SAS) regiment,
the British Army's
special forces unit,
which also trained
native instructors.
Earlier this year, the
British BBC Mundo’s
Spanish language
correspondent in
Colombia, Hernando
Salazar, reported that
Afghan police were being
trained here by the
Junglas in
anti-narcotics
techniques.
In addition to allowing
infiltration of the
guerrilla group, the
anonymous source
acknowledged another
"mistake": the FARC,
which has been in arms
since 1964, "has not
adapted to dealing with
the Jungle Commandos."
This explains the
wording of the
communiqués from the
FARC’s Western Joint
Command (CCO), which
announced the
legislators’ deaths on
Jun. 28, and on Jul. 10
said that "We failed in
our mission to guard the
prisoners and deliver
them to the exchange…"
WHEN DID IT HAPPEN?
In its Jun. 28 message,
the CCO said that on the
18th of June, "a still
unidentified military
group attacked the camp
where (the hostages)
were held."
IPS received another
report through a
Germany-based network
that monitors events in
Colombia, signed by the
Community Council of Río
Cajambre (the authority
for the black community
in that area), and dated
simply "July 2007." The
people living in the
area along the Cajambre
river are black.
The Community Council
reported the
displacement of 50
families living in the
headwaters of the river
"because of the risk of
dying in the crossfire
in clashes in the
collective territory of
Río Cajambre."
"In the month of June,
aerial bombardment,
overflying and
machinegun strafing have
intensified, especially
in the Agua Sucia valley
high up the (Cajambre)
river, which is also an
area where men and women
from the river go to
practice their
traditional productive
activities," the
Community Council wrote.
"These events have
caused the internal
displacement of 50
families from the Barco
community to the
communities of San
Isidro and Aragón," the
Council said. The
displaced families keep
on the move while the
battles are ongoing, and
"when the situation
calms down, they return
to their community."
"The most critical
events happened between
the 10th and 18th of
June, 2007, when the
fighting intensified,"
the Council said.
The Community Council
asked "the armed
combatants, both legal
and illegal, to respect
the rights of the
civilian population and
to practice the
principle of
distinguishing" between
combatants and
non-combatants, as
established by
international
humanitarian law.
According to Colombia’s
intelligence chief,
Andres Peñate, the
hostages' deaths were
the result of an
accidental clash between
rebel units.
President Álvaro Uribe
himself denied any
military attempt to
rescue the hostages by
force. He also denied
that there had been any
fighting in the
departments of Valle del
Cauca and Cauca, further
south, on Jun. 17, 18 or
19.
The death of J.J. was
reported by Vice Admiral
Edgar Celi Núñez, head
of naval operations, on
Jun. 15. The guerrilla
leader’s body was not
shown to the press.
The entry for the week
of Jun. 16-22 in the
military actions logbook
of the Observatory of
the Presidential
Programme for Human
Rights and International
Humanitarian Rights,
maintained by the vice
president’s office, has
been altered,
eliminating the report
of the combat originally
entered as having taken
place on Jun. 15 in
Barco.
The original version on
the web site, which was
downloaded by IPS on
Jul. 16, said: "In Barco,
in the district of
Cajambre and the
jurisdiction of
Buenaventura (Valle),
fighting broke out
between the navy and
subversives of the
Manuel Cepeda Vargas
Front of the FARC, in
which Milton Sierra
Gómez, alias ‘J.J.’, the
leader of this Front,
was killed. In the same
action, two of the
guerrilla camps were
dismantled. Source: El
País," the main regional
newspaper.
The following note
appears next, in blue
typeface: "However,
according to information
from the navy, this
event happened in the
same way and place
described, on Wednesday
Jun. 6, 2007."
Although there is no
reference to fighting in
Barco or Río Cajambre in
the logbook entry for
the week of Jun. 6-12,
this can be explained by
the fact that the
logbook is based on "a
daily review of national
and regional newspapers
and radio stations
consulted on the
Internet," according to
its methodology section.
Uribe said that "during
the third week of June"
a meeting was held
between "delegates of
the three European
countries, France, Spain
and Switzerland, who are
authorised by the
national government to
seek a humanitarian
agreement," and the FARC
spokesman, Raúl Reyes,
who works in the
department of Putumayo,
in the south of the
country, bordering
Ecuador.
So far, the government
and the FARC have
differences, which IPS
learned are being
overcome, about the
make-up of the neutral
forensic commission that
will examine the bodies
of the legislators and
determine whether they
were executed by their
captors, or died in the
crossfire, as the
guerrillas claim.
The Cajambre river rises
4,500 metres above sea
level. It is located
around 50 km southwest
of the strategic port of
Buenaventura, in Valle
del Cauca, Colombia’s
only Pacific ocean port,
which is intensely
disputed in the armed
conflict. |
